Notions

• Zionism

  an ideology and a political movement, born in Europe in the last quarter of the 19th century. The reconstitution of a Jewish nation, forming a body politic aiming at the creation of a sovereign state in the Land of Israel (Eretz-Israel), constitutes the fundamental objective of this doctrine and this movement. The term comes from the word "Zion" which, since the destruction of the first Temple, designates Jerusalem and appears recurrently in the texts of the Jewish tradition. More generally, Zion speaks of the continuing aspiration of the Jewish people, exiled far from their historic cradle and scattered among the nations, to one day return to their land, the Land of Israel. The concept of "Zionism" emerged at the end of the 19th century to designate the movement whose political (and not religious or philanthropic) goal was the organized return of Jews to Eretz-Israel. Invented by Nathan Birnbaum in his newspaper Selbstemanzipation (April 1, 1890), it was taken over by the Viennese journalist Theodore Herzl who gave it a precise political meaning, during the preparation of the first Zionist Congress held in Basel in 1897: the acquisition sovereignty over independent Jewish territory.

  Ilan Greilsammer, 2005